A Message from President Jim Lighthizer

I am often asked—how can we do more to protect battlefields? It is a question that I think about often, and what has driven our organization to become the effective and efficient nonprofit it is.

One way you can do more is to include the American Battlefield Trust in your will or estate plan. Over 1,000 individuals have decided to make battlefield preservation their enduring legacy by including the Trust in their estates. I encourage you to join them so that we can ensure that future generations can walk the battlefield land that we’ve been able to appreciate and enjoy.

As an organization, we’ve decided that to get to the next level—to do more to protect the next 50,000 acres of battlefield land that needs to be saved–we need a name that better reflects our overall mission. That is why we’ve created an overarching umbrella organization called the American Battlefield Trust with two divisions under it—the Civil War Trust and the Revolutionary War Trust. The Civil War Trust is not going away, it remains the largest and most important division of the American Battlefield Trust.

When you decide to give a gift to the American Battlefield Trust through your will or estate plan, you can designate that you want your gift to go to a certain purpose, such as to preserve Civil War Battlefields. You can trust us to honor your request, so please let us know what your designation is when you make your plans by completing our Declaration of Intent form.

I encourage you to spend a few minutes exploring our website to see the different ways that you can support battlefield preservation through your estate. If you have any questions please contact Alice Mullis in our planned giving office directly at amullis@battlefields.org or 202-367-1861 ext. 7219.

Sincerely,

Jim Lighthizer
President

P.S. If you have already included the Civil War Trust in your estate plans you don’t need to change them—the American Battlefield Trust is the same legal entity as the Civil War Trust. Read this page for more information.

This information is not intended as legal, accounting, or other professional advice. For assistance in charitable planning, consult a lawyer for legal advice or the services of a qualified professional.